Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com   

Imagine a basketball team where players are paid a bonus per basket, rebound, or steal. Would the five players work together to win, or would the game be about individual statistics and earning the biggest paycheck? Now imagine only two of the five players can earn a bonus. How would the other three starters and the bench react? 

In November, Governor Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Department of Education announced an $8.5 million competitive grant program to recognize teachers who accelerate student learning beyond one year of learning. Districts would be able to provide $2,500 in supplemental pay to the top 10 percent. Total district awards will vary based on the number of teachers in the district, up to a maximum of $500,000.

Reynolds called this program a “Teachers Accelerating Learning grant.” It’s funded through federal dollars from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan.

No matter what she calls the concept, it’s still just merit pay.

When I negotiated educator contracts, some legislators and local school board members flirted with merit pay. But flirtation never led to a happy marriage—or even serious dating—because both sides recognized the massive downside, which would lead to a painful divorce. 

Across the country, most school districts that have tried merit pay abandoned it, because it didn’t improve student achievement. In addition, teachers hated an evaluation system rewarding friends of the evaluator. It was arbitrary and subjective. 

Here are four reasons merit pay is destructive to the school environment.

First, public schools welcome all students. Teachers don’t choose who ends up in their classes. So unlike in a factory, teachers don’t control the raw products to be “manufactured.”

Like the basketball team, merit pay crushes teamwork. Although $2,500 may seem like a small amount to some, it’s not for underpaid teachers living paycheck to paycheck. Teachers need supportive colleagues willing to collaborate honestly. They don’t need competition with the second-grade teacher next door. Teachers are generally helpful, giving, and kind, but when only 10 percent of educators can receive the bonus, self-interest kicks in. Also, what happens if 15 percent of the teachers earn the bonus, but only 10 percent are funded?

Those aren’t the only reasons merit pay is unlikely to work for Iowa schools. I’m not sure how the Department of Education plans to measure accelerated learning, but I can guess: they will use standardized testing. 

Standardized tests are a tool for judging where a student might be academically on the day of the test. The outcome can depend on whether they’ve had enough sleep, didn’t have a fight at home, had a decent breakfast, took the test seriously, or whether the test is culturally biased. I’m not totally discounting a standardized test, but I am saying test scores can’t be the sole judge of teacher merit. 

Also, I’m not aware of any standardized tests for music, art, foreign language, consumer science, civics, or shop. How would special education teachers qualify for supplemental pay? These teachers might be excluded. But if not through standardized test scores, how would school districts determine who has merit and who doesn’t? 

Most teacher evaluations are hit or miss at best. I remember one assistant principal who came for my evaluation after lunch. He sat in the back of the room and promptly fell asleep. Another principal marked me down for having a messy desk. I did. He asked if I had anything to say. I said, “No, I would if I cared about your opinion of my desk.” I didn’t. There would have been no merit for me.

The state could better use $8.5 million from the American Rescue Plan to rescue teachers from paying for classroom supplies. According to data from the National Education Association, teachers spend an average of $413.35 per year on classroom supplies out of pocket. It’s a universal problem that could be solved quickly. 

The state could provide the money to schools for this purpose. That would have more value than spending money on a merit pay system which rarely produces results, harms teacher teamwork, and gives a false sense of student academic performance based on standardized tests.

---

Top image is by Xavier Lorenzo, available via Shutterstock.